The blaze illuminated his red hair on his face and head, making him look like a fire god. For a moment, she couldn’t breath. So handsome, so handsome, so handsome, she thought, with the bright firelight, glittering stars, and innocent moon revealing him to look more a deity than merely a man.
Somehow, she continued talking. “You know, like the crooked logs match with the roughly chopped timber, and the two incongruent logs seem to burn hotter when together. And back then, it suddenly occurred to me that it was as beautiful as adding numbers. It was as lovely as six plus six equaling twelve, twelve plus twelve equaling twenty-four, twenty-four plus twenty-four equaling forty-eight, and so on. Forever and ever. Unless I subtracted them. Numbers were just like the flames that I could control by making them bigger or smaller depending on the addition or subtraction, or in the case of fire, the kinds of logs I would put on it.”
Duncan cracked a wide grin, but Fleur didn’t know how to read it.
“I sound like an arithmetic nerd, er, fool, don’t I?”
He laughed and shook his head. “Nay, ye sound incredibly brilliant, was all I was thinkin’. I wasn’t addin’ when I was three. I doubt I did much of it until...Jesus, well, later in my life. I’m thinkin’ I’m the fool here.”
“No! I—my brain—I always think in numbers. I like the number three and try to make everything about it. Sometimes I even say things three times. Although it’s not compulsive or anything. Still, I’m weird.”
“No, ye aren’t.”
“Yes, I think—”
“I think I can out yell ye, Fleur, so before it gets to that, just agree with me that ye aren’t weird.”
“Is that how you win your confrontations? Out yelling people?”
He shook his head. The fire was getting too warm. She sat close to the fence a few feet away from the flames. Then she patted next to her hip. Almost tentatively he approached, but when he did settle next to her, he leaned against a fence pole, his arm just kissing hers.
“Nay, I—come to think upon it, I haven’t been in a confrontation in a while.”
“You’re a mercenary.”
He chuckled. “Those aren’t my confrontations.”
She smiled, liking his witty mind. “So what do you do in your confrontations then?”
Glancing up to the diamonds in the onyx sky, Duncan shrugged. “I don’ think I’ve been in one since I was a lad. We had a scrap. I fought with Billy MacDougal until we both had bloody noses.”
“What did you fight about?”
“Lord, I don’ remember.”
But the way he was trying to hide a smile told her otherwise. “Liar. You remember.”
He chuckled again. “Ye got a keen mind. Perceptive.”
She giggled. “I think a blind man could see you were lying. That smile of yours gives everything away. You’re right. You are a bad liar.”
“Aye.” He kept grinning.
“But you still haven’t told me what the fight was about.”
He gurgled an odd noise as he fought back another laugh. “All right. I’ll tell. It was about a lass.”
“Of course.” She tried to combat her own mirth, like him. “Was she pretty?”
Duncan looked at the fire and threw some sticks into it, she thought, to do something with his hands.
“Now that I really don’ remember, but she must have been, aye? For me to fight over her. ‘Twas my first heartache though, for the lass chose Billy over me, though I’d clearly won the fight.”
Fleur shook her head. “Silly girl.”
The next night they’d met again in the dark, swallowed by the silence of the nocturnal happenings, engulfed with shy smiles—routines were good. This time Duncan had started the fire and had placed a large amount of wood close by. The previous night they’d had to part because they’d run out of fuel for their flames. Now, they had the opportunity to talk for several hours. Fleur grinned widely.
After they sat together against the fence, a tiny bit closer to each other than last night, Duncan said, “Yer time—” He cleared his throat. “Tell me more about what ye do...in yer time.”
“It’s odd to say that, huh?”
“Aye. I—” He stopped himself and looked to the flames, appearing to bite at his lips.
“What? Tell me what you were going to say.”
He sighed, but then relented. “’Tis hard to believe. Ye’re from another time. What’s it like?”
She scooted a little closer, turning her folded legs toward him, holding onto a shin with her hand. “Some of my time is so similar to yours. I mean, here, right here, reminds me of my home, where I grew up. I—I don’t live in my hometown anymore.”
“Ye moved away from it?”
“Yes.”
“Do ye like where ye live now?”
She thought about Ithaca, New York, how it had a presence like a small town. It was a lush green thanks to the constant humidity, and outside the city, waterfalls dotted the land in sparkling rainbow colors. But because of the universities and its obvious closeness to New York City, there was a sense of urban to it Fleur wasn’t sure she did like. However, her small home was a little ways from Ithaca, where trees grew inches from each other, and a fox came and visited her every day in the spring and summer. One year the fox brought her babies close by when Fleur had left cheese out for the little family.
But it was Porcupine Fleur thought of. Ithaca resembled the Highlands in appearance more than her rough and tumble hometown, but in the sense of community and the close-knit feeling her home radiated, so too did the Highlands.
“I like Ithaca. It’s beautiful. But I miss Porcupine, my hometown until I was fourteen.”
“Fourteen? That’s when I wanted to leave Durness, have some kind of tutelage. But I waited until I was nearer seven and ten.”
Fleur thought Duncan might be impressed with her being plucked and taken to Texas when she had been a young teenager. But she hadn’t been impressive. She’d been depressed and lonely. “Yes. A teacher of mine called some people, because in school—oh, where I come from all the children have to go to school. Anyway, in school I did really well in math and science.”
“Aye, ye like numbers, ye think in numbers. I wish I did. That sounds intriguin’.”
She giggled. “Are you trying to be nice to me? I’m a freak.”
“Nay.” Duncan furrowed his red brows, then pointed a shaking finger at her. “Don’ say that about yerself. I’ll out yell ye for sure.”
She chuckled again, but then looked down while she shook her head.
He gave a hefty sigh then. “Ye think in numbers, which is good in my mind. I think in...Oh, Jesus, I’m goin’ to say it. I think in words.”
“Most people do.”
He shook his head. “Look at me. Tell me ye don’ see a man who is part beast, too much brawn for my own good, aye? So when people look at me, and see me with my sword that makes sense, ye ken? But the words I think with...the words . . .”
“Tell me about the words you think with.”
He huffed for a moment, seeming to need the extra air. But when he spoke, he sounded so calm. “Cinnamon whirls ‘round my mind. Ye hair reminds me of cinnamon. ‘Tis such a tempting spice, it is. Smells so innocent and sweet, and ye tresses are so dark, but in this light they glow red. Like cinnamon. If ye eat too much, ‘tis hot in yer mouth. It sits there then invades yer blood, makin’ ye boil inside out. But it feels so good, the heat, the sweet, the combination.”
Granted, Fleur had been attracted to Duncan from the very beginning. He’d stood so still after he’d dipped in the bay, letting the water wick off his huge muscular body. She’d loved the way his red hair had deepened, become dark curling rubies with droplets falling from them. And she’d wanted him. She’d wanted to pounce on him.
But right then, after he’d told her about how he thought in poems, poems created with beautiful words and desire, her skin sizzled, her breasts ached and the apex of her legs flooded with need. It was almost impos
sible not to attack him.
With the fire and the honeyed moon as their light and guide, he shook his head. “Anyway, ye were tellin’ me that ye left at the tender age of fourteen?”
She nodded absentmindedly. It was difficult to go back to conversation though. Words were difficult to come by. Ultimately, she knew she would get a hold of herself and talk again, but for a moment all she felt was a throbbing for him. It came in twos. Like a heartbeat, her ache for him.
She told him of living in Texas, of learning biology in college, graduate school, her PhD. He sat smiling at her.
“Ye are a smart one.”
“So are you.”
He shook his head.
“Why don’t you think of stories anymore? Your usage of words...it’s so beautiful.”
He looked down at the fire, then threw a few more logs onto it. “My stepfather, Albert, he heard me tell a tale once at the Green Cat, where ye told yer fine tale. Ye made up a good story with that one.”
She shook her head. “That wasn’t something I made up. It’s an old story, maybe a few thousand years old. It’s not at all mine.”
“Still, ye told it well.”
“And you’re once again avoiding answering me.”
He chuckled but then lost his grin when he started talking. “I told a tale when I was about eleven. I’d been tellin’ ‘em for a bit by then. Gettin’ requests to keep tellin’ ‘em too. So I made up this story of a boy who was part dragon and had the dreaded quest to save his village, but the dragon in him wanted to eat the village people.”
“Wow, that sounds amazing. Full of conflict. You thought that up when you were eleven?”
He shrugged and wouldn’t look at Fleur then. “So I’s tellin’ the story. Havin’ a good time with the crowd too, and my stepfather comes in and tells them all that I hadn’t baled the oat stalks correctly. That I had been too lazy thinkin’ up tales, rather than doin’ my chores.”
Fleur scooted until her legs touched Duncan’s, her hands finding his. “I’m so sorry. How humiliating.”
Although Duncan wouldn’t look at her, he wrapped his thumbs around her hands, holding her to him. “Aye, ‘twas. But even more so, because I had tied the bales right. I tried to defend myself, but Albert out yelled me, kept sayin’ I was lazy, my head in the clouds, thinkin’ of all my stupid tales.”
Her heart bled for the boy Duncan had been, how his stepfather had mortified him into thinking his gift was laziness. No wonder Duncan had given up.
“I’m glad Albert’s dead. I’d kick his ass if he were still around.”
Duncan finally looked up and smiled at her.
“Is that why you keep threatening me with the yelling?”
“Suppose so. I don’ ken any other way to fight, other than with my hands. I don’t think they are the right ways, so I keep my mouth shut meanwhile.”
“And fight other people’s battles for them.”
He shrugged.
She smiled and scooted even closer. “I’m going to pick a fight with you right now. So you can learn how to use your beautiful words instead of yelling or smacking me around.”
He reached for her arms, tugging urgently. “I’d never hit ye. Never. I swear it. And I never want to yell at ye either.”
She had known that all along. He was a gentle giant, which might have seemed absurd considering his current job was training men how to kill. But she knew he’d been jesting about out yelling her, and she knew it down to her bones he’d never do anything to hurt her.
She patted his chest, but couldn’t quite take her hands from him when she should have. God, he was so...hard. It distracted her for a moment, but then she thought of helping him learn how to fight. She hadn’t fought with anyone since her cousins, too afraid of saying the wrong thing, so it would be fun to pick a fight with the big guy. She might learn a trick or two herself.
“I know you’d never hit me. I was just teasing. Sorry. Bad joke?”
He slid his hands down until they rested on her lap, where she held them with her fingers poking between each of his thick digits.
With him distracted by her movement, she tried to think of what they could fight over. “You have dreadful weather here in MacKay country.”
He glanced up, his red brows furrowed in confusion.
“We’re fighting now. You have to tell me it’s not dreadful weather.”
“But it is. Been too hot. ‘Tis never like this. Horrible weather.”
She shook her head. “No, we’re fighting. You have to disagree with me.”
“But I don’ want to. I agree with you.”
“That’s not the point. You have to fight with me.”
“Ah, Jesus.”
“You can’t get Him involved. We’re fighting.”
He laughed, then straightened, and tried to wipe the smile from his face. “All right. The weather has been unpleasant, but ‘tis enjoyable in the evening, like now, with ye, where ‘tis perfect with a slight chill, so we have to sit close together to keep warm.”
She leaned her forehead against his strong chest. “Oh, we’re pathetic at fighting.”
“Nay. We’re not,” he said sharply.
She glanced up.
He smiled widely. “I’m fighting with ye now. Happy?”
“Being contrary isn’t fighting.”
“Aye, it is.”
“Oh, God.”
“We can’t have the Son, but the Father can be involved in our fight? How is that fair?”
She laughed, and he did too, but she saw something shift in his laugh. He was becoming more serious, which she wasn’t sure she wanted. When he’d told her about his stepfather, she’d wanted to protect him from that pain, wanted to wrap her arms around the man now and the boy back then.
But she wanted to know what was obviously bothering him. “What? What are you thinking about?”
He suddenly became sheepish, not looking at her. But he answered all the same. “Since I met ye,” he took a huge breath, “I—I keep thinkin’ upon a story, one I made up a long time ago.”
She grasped his arms before she even considered her actions. She’d also scooted much closer to him, practically on his lap. “That’s great! Will you tell me about it?”
“’Tis silly.”
She growled at him. “I told you already. I like silly, and I don’t consider storytelling silly. It elevates the spirit, it gives one hope when all is dark, it is the reason human beings stopped living in trees and sat around a fire. It’s why we have communities now, all because of stories.” She stopped, realizing what she’d just said. Well, he might not understand the evolutionary reference, but as for the rest...she hadn’t realized she felt so fiercely about tales, but she did. The stories told by her elders had been so old, as they would say in the Green Cat tavern, older than time was time. At one point she’d loved listening to them, believing in them. It had happened so slow, or maybe too fast, but one day she no longer thought of stories, or tales. She no longer believed.
But with Duncan, she felt she could have hope again. She could believe.
He took another breath, then began. “Ye might like this story. I hope. See, we all heard the tale of the princess Pocahontas coming from America. We’d heard the stories of cities of gold, treasures abounding, and beautiful people.”
“Really? Beautiful people?”
“Oh, aye. I even bought the stupid book that John Smith wrote, not believin’ much of it, but, och, how it stirred my imagination.”
“You know, America doesn’t have the gold that South America, Brazil, has. Well, there’s gold, but it won’t be discovered for another...jeez, another couple hundred years.”
Duncan grunted and nodded. His form of accepting what she’d told him. It made her laugh.
“Anyway, about Pocahontas . . .” She gestured with her hands, finally releasing her grip from his arms. But she had to keep touching him, so she settled her hands on his, which happened to be on his iron-tough thighs.
&nbs
p; “Aye, well, she visited England nearly forty years ago. ‘Tis still much discussed, especially her death.”
“Yes, she died when she was young, right? I’ve forgotten that part of my history.”
He sucked in a breath, as if admonishing her, but smiled. “’Tis before my time too. Anyway, so her story is that she was kidnapped while still living in Virginia. In captivity, she supposedly fell in love and married a white man, even though she was already married. Then she traipses off to London. Not there even a year, she had a babe, then dies. Not from having the bairn. Nay. But what she dies from, no one knows. She was eight and ten years of age or little older. How could she die so young? So my idea for a story is to have it durin’ that time, and to have a Highlander, o’ course—”
“Of course.”
His smile widened. “Have a Highlander partner up with an Indian to discover if she truly died from an ailment. Or was it murder?”
She clutched him once again, this time landing part of her thigh on him too. “Oh my God, Duncan, that’s brilliant! You have to write it.”
“Help me with it?”
“’Course,” she answered the way he would, and it made his smile turn hot, like the fire.
For the next week, they’d meet at night, plotting Pocahontas’s murder mystery, sharing, and talking until the early morning hours. When they’d finally depart from each other’s company it was always reluctantly.
After Fleur had started to hold Duncan’s hands, they’d find themselves by the end of the night with him inclined against a fence pole, and she’d lean part of her back against his chest. They’d both stare up at the stars.
“Have you heard of Galileo?” She’d asked while the back of her head nestled against his strong shoulder.
“Aye. Died a decade ago or so. Seemed like a smart man, like ye.”
“Are you calling me smart? Or a man?”
He chuckled, and not so bashfully leaned his head over her to glance at her chest. “There is nothing manly about ye, I can attest to that.”
Reclining back against the pole again, he was staring at the stars when she smacked him across his other mighty shoulder.
Highlander of Mine Page 11
